


Her World Fell Apart

by rebbie444



Category: Chicago Med
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:27:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27844471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebbie444/pseuds/rebbie444
Summary: Stress isn’t good in Natalie’s current condition.Tell that to the two men in full military dress who have just turned up to speak with her in the middle of an already stressful ED shift..Ethan holds his friend closely as her world falls apart.{Set before the beginning of Chicago Med}
Relationships: Ethan Choi/Natalie Manning, Natalie Manning/Jeff Manning
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Her World Fell Apart

**Author's Note:**

> I am a horrendous person.  
> I have been binge watching this darn franchise for just over a month and I’m on seasons 4, 3 and 1 and I’m hooked.  
> (This might be a little of out of character with how little I’ve watched of Med - I have no idea whether Ethan’s Dad is alive?) (I’ve also made up the ranks, middle names and military service of these characters too)  
> All typos are mine.  
> This hit one hit me like a truck and I guess I had to share the pain… Sorry

She was at work again.  
Of course she was at work, when wasn’t she now?  
This residency was tough. It wasn’t that she wasn’t enjoying it, it wasn’t that she was second guessing her crazy - and very expensive - decision to be a Doctor, it was that it was hard.  
And if that got her called pathetic, she didn’t care.  
Her husband was away, she was working ridiculously long hours and all this emotional stress from the job was no good for -  
She paused in the middle of her internal dialogue scared of getting caught as the door to the Doctor’s lounge slammed open and an angry war vet turned doctor strode inside, muttering to himself.  
“Ethan.” She found herself automatically drawing up the smile from the depths of the shadows, the mask that hid her exhaustion and her fear and her ridiculous hormonal over the top emotions from her colleagues… and her patients… and her superiors.  
On the outside, she looked fine, perfecting the mask to an art. But on the inside, it was an entirely different story.  
“What’ the matter?”  
“Urgh.” He grunted, seeming to notice her and leaning against the counter, stethoscope still clenched tightly in his fist. “Nuisance patients. Why the hell does something think a cold is a life threatening emergency? It kinda states it in the big letters over the door. ‘Emergency Department’. Since when did a sniffly nose indicate you were going to drop dead? I obviously missed that lecture at med school.”  
Natalie smiled wryly, nodding along to every point of his rant. “Don’t go into paeds.” She chuckled. “They’re here every two seconds for a stumped toe and nosebleeds.”  
“I’ll take it into consideration.” He chuckled, downing the rest of the contents of his mug. “I should get back, sorry.” He gestured at the door and the long line of patients that weaved it’s way from reception and out of the exterior doors.  
“Me too, I guess.” She sighed, wearily clambering to her feet.  
“You okay?” Ethan asked, as she stumbled.  
She nodded slowly, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Yeah, sorry. Thanks.”  
He raised an eyebrow and she rolled her eyes. “Just didn’t sleep that well last night.”  
“You miss him, don’t you?” He asked softly.  
She bit her lip. “Of course I miss him. You’d miss your husband if he was the other side of the world fighting a war.”  
“Make that a wife and I’d consider it.” He chuckled, holding open the door for her.  
Natalie shook her head. “Yeah, whatever.”  
“Hey.” He grabbed her wrist as she turned to leave, lowering his voice so only she could hear. “I don’t remember a lot of the waiting at home for my Dad to come back, but I do know what it’s like to be on the other side, waiting to come home to my loved ones, but also dreading it deep down inside. If you ever to need rant, or you just need someone to listen, I’m your man. And maybe I could provide you with some insight of what he’s going through?”  
“Thank you.” She smiled properly at the man, the soldier, she had first literally crashed into in the foyer of the hospital on match day. They’d opened their envelopes together, her too scared and him actually nervous, though he’d obviously deny it, too. They’d found out they were both going into Emergency Medicine, her with a special interest in paediatrics and him in special diseases. They’d swapped phone numbers after that and walked into the department together on their first day. And when he’s found out her husband was a solider, he sort of became the guy she leaned on, sharing valuable experiences of his own to get her through the long months when Jeff was away.  
She thanked him again, and then they went their separate ways to begin making a dent in the melee of patients.

It was nine hours later and she was done.  
She’s seen a kid who had fallen off his bike and broken his wrist, another kid that fell off the monkey bars and broke his leg, a stupid, full grown, man who had fallen off a hoverboard and sprained his ankle and a kind old man in his seventies who had thought he was having a stroke, but his facial drooping was from a previous stroke and his wife really was burning toast in the kitchen.  
And they were just the ones she could remember.  
So when she heard a stern male voice call her name, she just expected it to be her next patient, complaining about both the wait and whatever ridiculous impairment the world could dream up for her next.  
So when she glanced up, clipboard in hand with the necessary paperwork, it soon when crashing to the floor as she registered the sight of two military men in full uniform.  
“Ms Natalie Manning.”  
“It’s, uh, Doctor.”she stumbled over her words as the older man with curly white hair poking out from his hat smiled gently at her,  
“Doctor Manning, my apologies.” He looked around the busy department for a moment before his gaze settled back on her. “Is there anywhere more, ahem, private, that we could talk?”  
The otherwise manic department faded into a rush of white noise as she blinked sluggishly at the two men. “Uh… yeah. This way.”  
She led them to the consulting room in the corner of the department, hiding her shaky hands in the deep pockets of her scrubs, clearing her dry throat a few times to try to shift the huge lump that had suddenly rose there.  
The older man gestured to the sofa which she sank onto gratefully, too afraid her legs would give out as they both took chairs facing her.  
“Can I just get you to confirm that you are Doctor, -“ he smiled sheepishly again, the extra emphasis on her title almost making her forget the small, tight, ball of fear in her stomach for a second. “Natalie Julia Manning, wife of Lieutenant Jeffrey Manning?”  
Hearing his full name and title struck her as weird for a moment, but she nodded tightly anyway. “I am.”  
“Doctor Manning, I am afraid that we have come bearing some unpleasant news…”

***

He finally had a moment for a ten second break between patients, and Ethan leant against the desk tiredly, head in his hands, letting out a long groan.  
“Tired?” Maggie smirked, approaching him with yet another clipboard.  
“Please.” Ethan groaned, almost giving her the puppy eyes, but he didn’t want to break his tough appearance. “Just a second before another one.”  
“Okay,” she chuckled softly, placing the clipboard down next to him. “Treatment Three, that is when you’re ready, Doctor.”  
He looked up, shooting her daggers with his eyes behind her back and picking up the card, skimming through the information. A seventy six year old with an infected toenail. Great.  
Just as he was about to head in that direction, he jerked round at the sound of a pained scream. His gaze danced over the entire department and eventually landed on the glass door of the consulting room where he could see Natalie and two uniforms.  
“Tell me!” The female resident screamed, red in the face with clenched fists. “Just tell me. Please. Tell me he’s dead!”  
Without thinking, he dropped the clipboard and ran, pushing past Maggie and Doris and a whole host of other people who were headed in her direction because he knew this.  
He knew this.

He remembered opening the door as a seven year old to a woman and a man in posh uniforms that he think he remembers his Dad wearing around the day that goes quiet and wears the poppy on their shirt.  
He remembers them asking if his Mummy was in and him nodding, telling him she on the toilet but she’d probably be out soon.  
He remembers the kind lady offering to take him away and play somewhere else while the man spoke to his Mummy, and he refused, running around the lego bricks on the floor to hold his Mummy’s hand.  
He remembers her falling to the ground, crying like he did when he fell over and hurt his knee a few days ago, so he hugged her tight, just like she had done had to him then.  
He remembers the man awkwardly patting her shoulder and offering his condolences before they left again, disappearing just as soon as they had appeared.  
He remembers later that night, after his Mummy had held him on the floor and cried for hours, when over the rare treat of ice cream, she had quietly explained to him that Daddy wasn’t coming home, that he’s gone to live with the angels and it was now his job, he was the man of the house, and he had to protect his little sister. It was his job now.

He shook himself out of the awful memories of that day that resided in his nightmares and pushed open the door to the consulting room, preparing to support his friend as she experienced her own version of that horrible day.

***

“Just tell me he’s dead!” She remembered screaming, not caring that these esteemed members of the military and in fact, the entire hospital where she worked could hear her breakdown. She had slowly recognised the words as the younger man had spoke, remembering delivering the speel to some traumatised family members a few times when their relatives hadn’t pulled through.  
She remembered some of them asking her to put it into plainer words, and she’d never understood why.  
Until now.

Then, the door opened, and she all but fell into Ethan’s arms, the sobs tearing themselves from the depths of her throat and the tears and snot spilling from her eyes and nose and ruining the red scrubs he wore that matched hers.  
He pulled her tight into his arms and shushed her like a child, the reminder of her scarily near future causing her to rest a hand on her still flat belly as she cried and cried.  
Eventually, after what felt like forever, Ethan pulled her back to the sofa and she tucked herself into his side as the sobs slowed.  
“Lieutenant Commander Ethan Choi, Navy.” She heard him introduce himself, watched him shake the hands of both men, but it was as if she was behind a wall, the sounds muffled and the picture blurry.  
She heard as they explained the situation to him, repeating the formal announcement they had said to her when they first arrived. That it was with “great regrets” that they delivered the message, that unfortunately “Lieutenant Jeffrey Manning of the 31st Infantry Troop”, not her Jeff, was “tragically killed in action” yesterday.  
At hearing the words again, the tears reappeared, slipping faster and faster down her cheeks until her emotions were just pouring out of her like a waterfall.  
Ethan shook the hands of both men again and thanked them for their time. Then, they rose to their feet, the elder man with a sympathetic glance, and they left. Exiting from the mess they had made of her life as rapidly as they had crashed into it.  
It was a moment before Ethan came back, but then he was there, holding her close and letting her cry all over him, rubbing her back and whispering all sorts of nonsense of her to try to calm her down.  
She didn’t notice the curtains that Maggie had hung in front of the transparent door to give her privacy, she didn’t notice the sympathetic gazes of her colleagues as they heard what had happened to her beloved husband, she didn’t notice the sky turning dark outside or the shift change or the fact that the huge crowd of patients from earlier had all finally been seen and headed home.

Eventually, she stopped crying for long enough to look up apologetically at Ethan, sniffling quietly.  
“I’m sorry.” She croaked, her voice raw with emotion. “I’ve ruined your scrubs.”  
“It’s okay Nat.” He smiled softly, looking down at her. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”  
With that admission, the tears sprouted again though she had no idea she had any left to cry.  
She didn’t acknowledge his sympathy, her thoughts suddenly going tor child who would grow up without a Father.  
The words burst from her throat without a second thought as she clutched at her belly, looking at Ethan with pure terror in her eyes.  
“We’re… We were going to have a baby.”

He held her closely as her world fell apart.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m just gonna apologise again down here.  
> I’m sorry.
> 
> (Can you tell I’m a paediatric ED nurse with the mini rant about colds and (most) stubbed toes and (most) nosebleeds not being left threatening?)


End file.
